[ih] Re: Copyright Violation Claim

[Joe Touch]

"Ole J. Jacobsen" wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, Joe Touch wrote:
> 
> > IDs don't have that statement about "public" or "distribution of this
> > memo is unlimited", exactly because distribution _IS_ specifically
> > limited, to 6 months. This too has been pointed out many times, but
> > archives violating that very explicit 'condition of use' provision
> > persist.
> 
> Let's look at the *intent* here. The reason we have IDs with limited
> lifetime is to allow us to make new (and better) versions and to prevent
> (or strongly discourage) vendors from claiming conformance to an ID
> which is a work-in-progress document. I see nothing wrong with an
> "archivist" preserving old IDs if it is clearly understood that they
> have expired. Unpublishing published documents is a pretty futile
> exercise, and not helpful in my opinion.

There is another "intent" - to promote half-baked ideas without
having archived versions of them haunt their authors ad infinitum.
This was a _specific_ goal of having the timeout, in addition to
the ones you mention.

That's what's wrong with archiving them.

> > > The copyright statements are in place to prevent people from
> > > MODIFYING documents and claiming the modified docs have the same status
> > > as the original.
> >
> > Section 10 of RFC 2026 deals with modification, production of
> > derivative works, etc. But it also deals with ownership of the
> > copyright of the document, and its transferal to ISOC - as do specific
> > statements in the suffix of some RFCs, but not all.
> 
> OK, that's fine. There are exceptions, but the statements regarding ISOC
> on 99% of all of the documents in question were put there to encourage
> distribution (and copying) rather than prevent it (as copyrights typically
> do). The discussion on this list typically revolves around "why does ISOC
> have copyright to RFC?" and "Isn't the XYZ copyright statement better?"

Agreed - for RFCs. But for IDs, the timeout is a specific part of the
copyright statement.

Joe